Articles
The Wounding Of Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock
by Steven J. Wright,
GETTYSBURG MAGAZINE, January 1, 1992, Issue Number Six
The number of visitors with us was materially reduced that morning, on our recent visit there, although not as much as would have been desirable for our purposes. We had half as many as the day before; but we always had some with us who did not quite understand the value of the special inquiry we were pursuing. Moreover, we had no photographers to take our pictures en route, and in this connection I may mention that the skillful artist who accosted us two or three times on the previous day, in sending me the result of his operations, developed the fact that I was surprised and ill pleased on each occasion, since my photograph always showed a frown. To you, in the picture, justice is invariably shown.
One of the stops made by the visiting party was the site where Hancock was wounded during the climax of "Pickett's Charge" on the afternoon of July 3, 1863. In this previously unpublished letter to Walker, Hancock wrote:
I was shot from my horse when leaving the Vermont position by its right, along the high ground, proceeding directly towards the clump of timber, and passing over the same general direction I had traveled on my way up to the Vermont troops, a few minutes before. The place where I was shot, as at present marked, is not very accurately indicated. I saw no great boulder in the neighborhood. Lying on my back and looking through the remains of a very low, disintegrated stone wall, I could observe the operations of the enemy and give directions accordingly; and the Vermont troops, obeying my orders, proceeded close to my left, along that wall, towards the right. In lying down my head was to the south and my feet to the north. From where my horse fell I was carried a few yards to the spot upon which I lay down, by the Officers of the Vermont troops, in the presence of General [George J.] Stannard, Colonel [George G.] Benedict and others. They know the position and it was marked out by them on my visit in 1866. I do not recognize the spot now pointed out as that where I was shot, although I was satisfied of the general accuracy of the place when indicated in 1866.
As was his custom during a battle, on the morning of July 3, Hancock sent a telegram to his wife, Almira, then visiting her parents in St. Louis, stating, "I am all right so far." A few hours later, Mrs. Hancock received another telegram from her husband notifying her of his wound and asking that she join him in Philadelphia as soon as possible. Because of the severity of the wound, Hancock asked that his condition not be given.
In his biography of Hancock, Francis A. Walker described the general's actions during the bombardment preceding "Pickett's Charge":
As soon as the cannonade opened, Hancock mounted his horse, and with his staff behind him and his corps flag flying, rode slowly along the front of his line that every man might see that his general was with him in the storm ... Only once was the cavalcade interrupted; so furious was the fire, his favorite black charger became unmanageable, and Hancock was obliged to dismount and borrow the horse of an aid [sic] to complete the circuit of his line.
Hancock was customarily conspicuous under fire; wearing his sword belt under his frock coat, the coat unbuttoned except for the top button, exposing a clean white shirt underneath.
He evidently remained mounted throughout the Confederate assault against the Union center. Seeing the opportunity for Brig. Gen. George Stannard's Vermont brigade to make a counterattack against the Confederate right flank, Hancock rode toward the Vermonters.
Lt. George G. Benedict, General Stannard's aide, wrote in a letter dated July 14, 1863:
Just after General Stannard had ordered the Thirteenth and Sixteenth Vermont regiments out on Pickett's flank, General Hancock, followed by a single mounted orderly, rode down to speak to General Stannard. Lieutenant George W. Hooker and myself were standing near the General's side. The din of artillery and musketry was deafening at the time, and I did not hear the words that passed between the two generals. But my eyes were upon Hancock's striking figure -- I thought him the most striking man I ever saw on horseback, and magnificent in the flush and excitement of battle -- when he uttered an exclamation and I saw that he was reeling in his saddle.
In her biography of her husband, Almira Hancock described the wounding of the general:
Turning away [from Stannard's line] toward the clump of bushes in [Alexander] Webb's front, he was shot from his horse. All the General's staff were on other parts of the field, and he had with him at the time only his tried and faithful color-bearer, [Pvt. James] Wells, of the Sixth New York Cavalry. He received immediate assistance from some of General Stannard's staff.
When wounded, Hancock was nearest Company K, Thirteenth Vermont. Lt. Sidney S. Morey, of Company E, Thirteenth Vermont, and Lieutenants Hooker and Benedict of the Twelfth, assisted Hancock from his horse and placed him on the ground.
In his letter dated July 14, Benedict wrote:
Hooker and I with a common impulse sprang toward him, and caught him as he toppled from his horse into our outstretched arms. General Stannard bent over him as we laid him upon the ground, and opened his clothing where he indicated by a movement of his hand that he was hurt, a ragged hole, an inch or more in diameter, from which the blood was pouring profusely, was disclosed in the upper part and on the side of his thigh. He was naturally in some alarm for his life.
Lieutenant Morey, formerly orderly sergeant of Company K, Thirteenth Vermont, ran to Pvt. Clark H. Butterfield, of Company K, asking for the tourniquet he knew Butterfield carried. But upon returning to the wounded general, it was discovered that the wound was too high on the thigh to be effective.
Benedict went on to describe Hancock after he had been removed from his horse:
"Don't let me bleed to death," he said, "Get something around it quick." Stannard had whipped out his handkerchief, and as I helped to pass it around General Hancock's legs I saw that the blood, being of dark color and not coming in jets, could not be from an artery, and I said to him: "This is not arterial blood, General; you will not bleed to death." From my use of the surgical term he took me for a surgeon, and replied, with a sigh of relief: "That's good; thank you for that Doctor." We tightened the ligature by twisting it with the barrel of a pistol, and soon stopped the flow of blood.
Maj. W.G. Mitchell, of Hancock's staff, soon arrived on the scene but hurried away in search of a surgeon. In about fifteen minutes, Mitchell returned with a doctor named Dougherty, who removed the tourniquet; thrust his forefinger into the wound; removed several small pieces of wood and a severely bent ten-penny nail; and said to Hancock, "This is what hit you, General, and you are not so badly hurt as you think."
But Hancock's wound was more severe than Dr. Dougherty and other surgeons who would treat him over the next several months would believe. Francis A. Walker wrote,
"The wound was an ugly one and ghastly to see. An onlooker has compared it to the stab wound of a butcher's knife."
A romantic account of Hancock's wounding was written by the Rev. Charles W. Denison, who evidently never visited Gettysburg:
He was laid bleeding on the grass, surrounded by anxious groups of officers and men. The breastworks of the enemy were but a short distance off, and the battle was still waging.
"Shall we not carry you to the rear, General?" enquired Colonel [Wheelock] Vesey [sic] who was near him.
"No, I thank you, Colonel," said Hancock, waving his hand gracefully, in the midst of his pain, calmly adding:
"Attend to your commands, gentlemen; I will take care of myself."
Francis A. Walker gave a similar account of Hancock speaking to Col. Wheelock Veazey, commander of the Sixteenth Vermont:
"Yet still lying there, his wound spouting blood, Hancock raised himself upon his elbow to watch the progress of the fight; and as Veazey passes by with his gallant regiment, calls him to himself, clasps his hand as in the old days, and, in a voice still martial and stirring cries, "Go in, Colonel, and give it to them on the flank."
While Hancock was being tended to, Maj. H. H. Bingham, also of the injured officer's staff, and himself being slightly wounded in the head, arrived with Confederate Brig. Gen. Lewis Armistead's personal possessions and the message, "Tell General Hancock that I have done him and my country a great injustice, which I shall never cease to regret."
Major Mitchell was sent to Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac, with the message that the troops under Hancock's command had repulsed the enemy, that a great victory had been gained, and that Hancock lay wounded on the field. Meade's reply: "Say to General Hancock that I regret that he is wounded, and that I thank him, for the country and for myself, for the service he has rendered today."
Mrs. Hancock described the care the general then received and the extent of his wound:
He was taken first to the field hospital, thence that night to Westminster (Maryland), arriving in Baltimore the following morning, and in Philadelphia at noon. It was at first supposed that his wound was made by a bursting shell, in which nails had been used for filling. On the following day a bullet hole was discovered through the pommel of the saddle he had ridden, and it was then suspected that a ball had passed through it, carrying with it the nail and pieces of wood. This turned out to be the case, for the wound, not healing kindly, was probed thoroughly six weeks afterwards and the ball extracted by the painful operation of cutting through the half cicatrized wound to the bone. The bone was injured, and to this fact is due the subsequent trouble the General has had with the wound.
While in Philadelphia, the Hancocks stayed in the La Pierre Hotel, a favorite of military personnel and their families. While recovering, Hancock was all but forgotten by the citizens of Philadelphia. Mrs. Hancock recalled:
Gay bands of music, followed by cheering, exultant crowds, would nightly pass his hotel without a sign of recognition, but heaping upon General Meade's family the entire honor of that victory, which saved Pennsylvania and the Nation. This oversight, though deeply felt by him, he considered very natural, as General Meade (a native of Philadelphia) was commander of the Army of the Potomac, and while the roar of the battle still swelled in the air, it was to him the populace wished to express their gratitude.
Although under the care of two surgeons, Hancock's wound did not heal as quickly as expected or hoped. Feeling that part of the problem was the stifling summer heat in the city, it was decided to remove the general to his father's home in Norristown, Pennsylvania, about sixteen miles away. Almira Hancock recalled the day the general was moved from Philadelphia:
When it became known that it was General Hancock's intention to leave the city, the firemen volunteered to transport him from the hotel La Piere [sic] to the car that had been provided for the purpose, without injury to the invalid. Well did they perform this service. They presented themselves in full regalia at the time appointed for the journey, and in a tender, impressive manner, conveyed him, worn and shattered, but without fatigue, to the Philadelphia depot. When he arrived at Norristown, a detachment of the Invalid Guards were in waiting, besides a large concourse of people, to receive him. The Guards carefully bore him along the street to his father's home. There he had every surgical attention; and with a strong constitution it was not long before his strength revived, and convalescence came slowly but surely.
Hancock's recovery was slow. In fact, the wound bothered him for the rest of his life. In his book, Army Life in Virginia, G. G. Benedict described a meeting with the general:
Four months after the battle I met Hancock in Willard's Hotel in Washington. He remembered my face and I spent an hour talking over the battle with him. He told me that though his wound soon healed externally, it gave him immense pain till, after a number of weeks, the surgeons opened it and probed it more thoroughly, when, eight inches from the opening, they found and extracted a minie ball and a round plug of wood. The explanation of this curious assortment of missiles to be taken from a single wound was a simple one. Hancock was facing the enemy when hit. The ball passed first through the pommel of his McClellan saddle, took from it the nail and a round piece of wood the size of the ball, and carried both with it into his body.
Hancock survived his wound to die on February 9, 1886 at Governor's Island, New York, just five days shy of his sixty-second birthday. At the time of his death he commanded the Department of the East. The general was buried in Norristown, less than two miles from his father's home, where he had recovered from his Gettysburg wound.
Today, a small granite marker stands near a tiny grove of trees and an outcropping of stone where, during the climax of the greatest battle ever waged on the North American continent, the commander of the Second Corps asked bravely that he not be allowed to bleed to death.
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